


they say that your demons can't go there

by Madeofsequins



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, M/M, Pre-Epilogue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-30
Updated: 2017-09-30
Packaged: 2019-01-07 09:57:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12230553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Madeofsequins/pseuds/Madeofsequins
Summary: After it's over, Ronan learns to live with his grief, and Adam learns to live with Ronan (and himself).





	they say that your demons can't go there

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first piece I've written in 5+ years, and for a brand-new-to-me fandom. Hello, world.

When it’s all over, Adam wonders if the relief and joy of survival can ever outweigh the horror, the fear, the loss. So many months of their lives, time exponentially accelerating toward the end, dedicated to this quest, to playing with magic maybe they never truly understood. And now, they have nothing to show for it except the rise and fall of Gansey’s breath in his lungs, the already-purpling handprints around Ronan’s throat, the cuts and bits of tree bark dusted across Adam’s knuckles, the salty tracks of dried tears on Blue’s face. No Welsh king, no favor. But alive.

 

Blue and Gansey cling to each other, shell-shocked and silent. Ronan stumbles when he stands, then coughs so long and hard that Adam is surprised he doesn’t vomit. He places a shaking hand on the flat of Ronan’s upper back, offers the other one to steady him and pull him back to standing. Henry’s mouth hangs open, so many questions on the tip of his tongue.

 

Gansey says, “Let’s go home.”

 

\--

 

They all end up at Monmouth by unspoken agreement. Henry walks the rooms in wonder, an exclamation here, a question there. Blue and Gansey sit on the couch, Adam collapses in a chair, and Orphan Girl curls up on the floor. Ronan leans, heavily, against a wall and watches Henry with increasing animosity. Minutes go by in silence before Ronan’s voice, flat and icy and tired, says “Time to leave, Cheng.”

 

“Ronan, no,” Gansey starts, “he can--” but Ronan’s posture and expression darken so quickly and profoundly that Henry flips his hand in a half-wave in the general direction of the couch and exits with a _‘til next time, magical people_ thrown over his shoulder.

 

After the door shuts behind him, Adam says “Lynch” in no tone at all but catches Ronan’s eye and means _I’m sorry_ and _are you okay?_ and _come here_ and _I’m so sorry._ Ronan says nothing. He pushes off the wall and slumps in a pile of limbs by Adam’s chair. Adam wants to reach out his hand, to touch him, to make sure he’s still solid and alive, but he doesn’t.

 

On the couch, Blue runs her fingers across Gansey’s face, his hands. “You’re alive, you’re alive,” she says with no small amount of reverence. “You look just the same.” Gansey’s eyes meet hers and Adam can tell from his expression that he can’t quite believe it, either.

 

The hunched pile of limbs that is Ronan stiffens at Adam’s feet. Orphan Girl lifts her head. Adam abruptly remembers that Ronan’s mother was not so lucky. His voice catches in his throat, sticks there.

 

Ronan’s voice is still flat and cold as the tundra when he announces without looking at any of them, “I’m going to the Barns.”

 

\--

 

For a moment, no one replies. Gansey looks panicked. Adam feels panicked, then selfish for feeling panicked, then panicked even moreso. He doesn’t even know how to begin to help this difficult, devastated boy. A boy who almost died; a boy he almost killed. A boy who has lost, over and over again. A boy he can’t even yet admit to himself that he might love.

 

He looks at Gansey in a way that he hopes conveys his acceptance of the mantle of responsibility that is keeping Ronan Lynch alive at his very lowest. He takes Orphan Girl’s hand, and they follow the retreating form of Ronan to the exit of Monmouth Manufacturing.

 

He catches Ronan before he gets in the car and intercepts him before he fully slides into the driver’s seat. He catches Ronan’s wrist as lightly as he can -- everything hurts, everything on Ronan must hurt -- and tries to extricate the keys from his clenched fist. He drags his eyes up to Ronan’s face, the congealed blood on his ear, stains of black blood still shadowing his nose and mouth. “You can’t drive.”

 

“I can do whatever the fuck I want,” Ronan replies, but there’s no fire behind his words. He slumps against the length of Adam’s body and doesn’t protest when the keys leave his hand. He lets himself be led to the passenger’s side and deposited in the seat.

 

The three of them are silent all the way to the Barns.

 

\--

 

Two days ago, Adam fell asleep tangled up in Ronan Lynch for the first time. It was terrifying and exhilarating and everything he never let himself knew he could have wanted. He was still allowing himself to want it, to want so much more, when everything went so rapidly to absolute shit.

 

The next morning, he wakes before sunrise to Orphan Girl screaming and Ronan’s arms and torso covered in a thin layer of quickly-drying blood.

 

Even after Ronan wakes up and his post-dream paralysis wears off, he is practically catatonic. Adam gets him a glass of water, because he has no idea what else to do. He takes longer than he needs to finding a cup in the kitchen and filling it. When he returns to the bedroom, Ronan hasn’t moved. He barely turns his head when Adam sits carefully down beside him and offers him the glass. Ronan holds it but makes no move to drink. Staring into the cylinder of the cup, he whispers fiercely, “Don’t tell Gansey.”

 

“Don’t fucking die on me now, Lynch.” Adam tries to hide his fear. Mostly fails. He slides closer to Ronan and pulls his forearm into his own lap. The cuts are numerous but not deep; they’ve already stopped bleeding. Adam runs a calloused thumb across an unmarred sliver of Ronan’s wrist, back and forth, back and forth.

 

The bruises around Ronan’s neck have darkened to a stark indigo, his ear is swollen. Adam feels a desperate guilt bubbling in his chest, twofold: guilt for the wounds his hands inflicted, guilt for how inadequate he feels now.

 

He knew choosing Ronan wouldn’t be easy, but he didn’t know it would be so difficult, so fast. He hates himself for the thought even as it materializes.

 

He sighs quietly against Ronan’s shoulder and pulls both of them fully back down on the bed. Ronan doesn’t make a sound, but he doesn’t pull away when Adam wraps his arms around the curve of his ribs. They sleep again. Ronan doesn’t dream. Adam dreams of his own hands around Ronan’s throat and wakes up breathless.

 

\--

 

When they wake again, Ronan numbly walks to the shower to wash off the blood that has crusted all over the top half of him. Adam uses Ronan’s phone to call off school and work for the next three days. “There’s been. A death,” he says haltingly and feels enormous relief when neither the school administration nor his employers probe for more information. The thought of those missed days creates a heavy, turbulent pit in the bottom of his stomach, but if these last few days have taught him nothing else, he knows where his priorities lie.

 

He also texts Gansey: _Still alive. Hope you are too. -A_ What he doesn’t say: I don’t know if I can do this. What he doesn’t ask for: help.

 

\--

 

The next three days are quiet, so quiet. Ronan wakes early, drenched in sweat. Once he has a knife in his hand that looks like it’s made entirely from bone. There’s no more blood. His eyes are depthless and empty, but his grip on Adam’s hands is tight and full of something that feels real.

 

Mostly they go outdoors, working on the grounds, bundled in sweaters, breath escaping white and ghostly in the chilly fall air. It feels good to work. When Adam’s body is moving, laboring hard, the looping thoughts of almost-death and demonic possession take a welcome backseat.

 

He doesn’t know how to properly be there for Ronan, so he just is. He can’t tell if it’s helping.

 

\--

 

Gansey texts back, _Not dead yet. Perhaps 3rd time’s a charm._

 

\--

 

On Sunday, Adam dresses for work and Ronan dresses for church. Ronan’s replaced his subdued demeanor of the past few days with extreme agitation. He rips clothes from their hangers and throws them across the room, snaps when he and Adam nearly crash into one another navigating the shower.

 

Fully clothed in church-appropriate attire and the heavy cloak of a terrible mood, Ronan jingles his keys. “C’mon.”

 

Adam meets his eyes, nods. He’s both terrified and relieved to leave the solitude of the Barns.

 

When they arrive at St. Agnes to part ways, Ronan lingers in the car, left leg jittery and shaking. Adam waits.

 

“They don’t know yet. About Mom.”

 

Adam’s heart breaks all over again. “And you need to tell them today?”

 

“I don’t lie,” Ronan growls, gravel in his throat.

 

Adam has no reply to that; what can he say? Instead, he kisses Ronan, quickly and chastely, in God’s parking lot, and wishes it were enough.

 

\--

 

They hadn’t spoken about it, but Adam returns to the Barns after work. The drive to school in the morning will be long and tired, but it doesn’t seem to matter much.

 

Ronan is sitting on the roof of the barn closest to the house, the lean lines of his body just barely outlined by several firefly lights that float nearby. He’s not wearing a coat. Adam climbs up to join him. Ronan looks cold and miserable, toying with the leather straps around his wrist and staring across the property. Chainsaw swoops back from wherever she’d ventured to and lands on Ronan’s shoulder, talons biting lightly into his bare skin.

 

“Sometimes I wish you were angrier,” Adam can’t help but say. That, he could deal with, that, he’d known to expect. He thinks of _Ronan, growing up_ , and thinks maybe anger isn’t what he should have anticipated after all.

 

“I’m so fucking tired.” He’s still looking out into the darkness. Adam understands this is a different kind of tired than long days and short nights, sleep lost to school and work. Ronan is tired of loss.

 

“I know.”

 

Bruised knuckles grab for a scarred hand. They sit for a long moment before heading inside to the warmth.

 

\--

 

The short gasps of Ronan’s breath wretch Adam from sleep just before dawn. For one terrible moment as his eyes and brain struggle to contextualize, he thinks of Ronan, choking, Ronan, unmade, Ronan, dying. He springs to sitting and sees a solid slab of marble lying across Ronan’s chest. A gravestone.

 

His pulse slowly dropping back down, Adam moves his hands next to Ronan’s around the stone and lifts it off his chest and to the floor. He traces the engraved letters lightly: _Aurora Lynch. Remembered with love._

 

When the sun starts to rise above the horizon, they carry it to a grove that feels miles away from the house. The dream gravestone, once placed on the ground, stands straight and immovable. Ronan sits in front of it, head bowed. He whispers something too quiet to Adam to hear.

 

An hour later, Adam leaves for school. His return to the real world feels strange and inappropriate. On his way out, he whispers into the bony knobs of Ronan’s spine, around the whorls of ink there: “please be here when I come back.”

 

\--

 

At school, everything is the same. It feels like it shouldn’t be, but all around them, the world keeps turning steadily on its axis. Adam sees his own dazed expression mirrored on Gansey’s face. When they meet at their lockers, Gansey raises a brow in a silent question. Adam answers with a nod and half-shrug.

 

Ronan texts them a picture of a sleeping cow during lunch, and it feels like a victory.

 

\--

 

That afternoon, Gansey and Adam pick up Blue and take the Pig to the Barns, armed with pizzas and soda. Strange to think not a week before, they were all here celebrating Ronan’s birthday. It had been such a happy night, a reprieve before the burdens of dark magic and grief settled down on their shoulders.

 

Ronan is crouched on the grass, throwing his bone dagger at a fat-trunked tree. The extreme focus on his face eclipses whatever misery or anger may have been there before. The back of his jeans are wet, but at least he’s wearing his leather jacket. He pauses at their arrival, looks at Adam, then to Gansey, back to Adam. He tilts his head, then slowly gets to his feet.

 

“All right then.” They follow him inside.

 

Gansey and Adam do their best imitation of normalcy, filling Blue and Ronan in on the latest at school. Blue passes on well wishes and some magical theories from the women of 300 Fox Way. Ronan absorbs the conversation listlessly, but he stays mostly present and doesn't bite off anyone's head.

 

Gansey, on his way out, catches Adam alone in the hallway for a brief moment. He clasps a hand on his shoulder. “You're doing good, Parrish.” Adam isn't so sure, but no one's dying, screaming, or disappearing into the night, so at least there's that.

 

That night, Ronan curls into Adam and lets himself be kissed into a dreamless sleep. Adam uses his hands and lips to say what his words cannot.

 

\--

 

There is no big blow out, no epic explosion, no frantic trip to the hospital. Ronan does not hit rock bottom. In bits and pieces, he comes back to himself. His vocabulary returns to its original color. His appetite (both for solid food and for Adam) slowly starts to return. His nightmares don’t stop, but their frequency diminishes. He dreams a bundle of the same blue flowers from that day, now weeks and weeks behind them. He places them on his mother’s grave, then makes Adam breakfast before he leaves for school.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Horses" by Tori Amos.


End file.
